Maxine Valois marvels not that the old navigators missed the Golden Gate. It was easy to pass the land-locked bay, with its arterial rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin. Fate hung a foggy curtain on the outside bar. Greenest velvet sward now carpets the Alameda hills. It is a balmy March day of 1847. The proceeds of his horse and trappings give the youth less than a hundred dollars—his whole fortune.
The Louisianian exile, with the world before him, is now a picture of manly symmetry. Graceful, well-knit physique, dark hair and eyes, and his soft, impassioned speech, betray the Franco-American of the Gulf States. While gazing on the glories of Tamalpais and the wooded mountains of Marin, he notes the little mission under the Visitacion hills. It's a glorious scene. All the world's navies can swing at ease in this superb bay. The only banner floating here is the ensign at the peak of the frigate Portsmouth. Interior wanderings give him a glimpse of the vast areas controlled by this noble sheet of water. Young and ardent, with a superior education, he may be a ruling spirit of the new State now about to crystallize. His studies prove how strangely the finger of Fortune points. It turned aside the prows of Captain Cook, La Perouse, Vancouver, and the great Behring, as well as the bold Drake, who tarried within a day's sail at his New Albion. Frenchman, Englishman, and Russian have been tricked by the fairy goddess of the mist. The Golden Gates in these later days are locked by the Yankees from the inside.
Leaping from the boat, Valois tosses his scanty gear on the strand. It is a deep, curving bay, in later years to be covered with stately palaces of commerce, far out to where the Portsmouth now lies.
A few huts make up the city of Yerba Buena. Reflecting on his status, he dares not seek the alcalde, Lieut. Washington Bartlett of the navy. From his escort he has heard of the many bickerings which have involved Sloat, Stockton, Fremont, and Kearney.
Trusting to Padre Francisco's letters, he hires a horse of a loitering half-breed. This native pilots him to the mission.
The priests receive him with open arms. They are glad for news of their brother of the Sierras. Maxime installs himself as a guest of the priests. Some current of life will bear him onward—whither he knows not.
Idle days run into weeks. A motley five or six hundred whites have gathered. The alcalde begins to fear that the town limits are crowded.
None of the wise men of the epoch dare to dream that in less than three years two hundred vessels will lie tossing, deserted in the bay; that the cove will be filled with ships from the four corners of the earth in five years.
Frowning hills and rolling sand dunes are to be thrown bodily into the reentrant bay. They are future coverings for sunken hulks. Where for twenty square miles coyote and fox now howl at night, the covert oaks and brambles will be shaved off to give way to a city, growing like a cloud-land vision.
Active and energetic, Valois coasts down to Monterey. He finds Fremont gone, already on his way east. His soldier wrists are bound with the red tape of arrest. The puppet of master minds behind the scenes, Fremont has been a "pathfinder" for others.
Riding moodily, chafing in arrest, at the rear of the overland column, the explorer receives as much as Columbus, Pizarro, or Maluspina did—only obloquy. It is the Nemesis of disgrace, avenging the outraged and conquered Californians.
A dark shade of double dealing hangs around the glories of the capture of California. The methods used are hardly justified, even by the national blessings of extension to this ocean threshold of Asian trade. The descent was planned at Washington to extend the domineering slave empire of the aspiring South. The secret is out. The way is clear for the surplus blacks of the South to march in chains to the Pacific under the so-called "flag of freedom."
Valois discovers at Monterey that no man of the staff of the "Pathfinder" will be made an official pet, They are all proscribed. The early fall finds him again under the spell of the bells of the Mission Dolores. Whither to turn he knows not.
Averse to manual labor, like all Creoles, the lad decides to seek a return passage on some trader. This will be hardly possible for months. The Christmas chimes of 1848 sound sadly on his ears.
With no home ties but his uncle, his memories of the parents, lost in youth, fade away. He feels the bitterness of being a stranger in a strange land. He is discouraged with an isolated western empire producing nothing but hides and tallow. He shares the general opinion that no agriculture can succeed in this rainless summer land of California. Hardly a plough goes afield. On the half-neglected ranchos the owners of thousands of cattle have neither milk nor butter. Fruits and vegetables are unattainable. The mission grapes, olives, and oranges have died out by reason of fourteen years' neglect. The mechanic arts are absent. What shall the harvest of this idle land be?
Valois knows the interior Indians will never bear the strain of development. Lazy and ambitionless, they are incapable of uniting their tribal forces. Alas for them! They merely cumber the ground.
At the end of January, 1848, a wild commotion agitates the hamlet of San Francisco. The cry is "Gold! Gold everywhere!" The tidings are at first whispered, then the tale swells to a loud clamor. In the stampede for the interior, Maxime Valois is borne away. He seeks the Sacramento, the Feather, the Yuba, and the American. He too must have gold.
A general hegira occurs. Incoming ships, little settlements, and the ranches are all deserted, for a wondrous golden harvest is being gleaned. The tidings go forth over the whole earth. Sail and steam, trains of creaking wagons, troops of hardy horsemen, are all bent Westward Ho! Desertion takes the troops and sailors from camp and fleet pell-mell to the Sacramento valley. A shabby excrescence of tent and hut swells Yerba Buena to a town. In a few months it leaps into a city's rank. Over the prairies, toward the sandy Humboldt, long emigrant trains are crawling toward the golden canyons of the Sierras. The restless blood of the Mexican War pours across the Gila deserts and the sandy wastes of the Colorado.
The Creole boy learns that he, too, can work with pick, pan, cradle, rocker, at the long tom, sluice, and in the tunnel drift. The world is mad for gold. New York and New Orleans pour shiploads of adventurers in by Panama and Nicaragua. Sailing vessels from Europe, fleets around the Horn, vessels from Chile, Mexico, Sandwich Islands, and Australia crowd each other at the Golden Gates.
In San Francisco six months show ten thousand madmen. Tent, hut, shanty, shed, even pretentious houses appear. Uncoined nuggets, glittering gold dust in grains and powder, prove the harvest is real.
The Indians and lazy Californians are crowded out of the diggings. The superior minds among the priests and rancheros can only explain the long ignorance of the gold deposits by the absolute brutishness of the hill tribes. Their knowledge of metals was absolutely nothing. Beyond flint-headed spears, their bows and arrows, and a few mats, baskets, and skin robes, they had no arts or useful handicraft. Starving in a land of plenty, their tribal career never lifted itself a moment from the level of the brute. And yet gold was the Spaniards' talisman.
The Mexican-descended rancheros should have looked for gold. The traditions even indicated it. Their hold on the land was only in the footprints of their horses and cattle.
Had the priests ever examined the interior, had a single military expedition explored the State with care, the surface gold deposits must have been stumbled on.
It remains an inexplicable fact, that, as early as 1841, gold was found in the southern part of the State. In 1843, seventy-five to one hundred ounces of dust were obtained from the Indians, and sent to Boston via the Sandwich Island trading ships. Keen old Sir Francis Drake's reports to good Queen Bess flatly spoke of these yellow treasures. They, too, were ignored. English apathy! Pouring in from the whole world, bursting in as a flood of noisy adventurers on the stillness of the lazy land of the Dons, came the gold hunters of California.
Already, in San Francisco, drinking booth, gambling shop, and haunts of every villany spring up—the toadstools of a night.
Women throng in to add the incantations of the daughters of Sin to this mad hurly-burly. Handsome Mexicans, lithe Chilenas, escaped female convicts, and women of Australia were reinforced by the adventuresses of New Orleans, Paris, New York, and Liverpool—a motley crowd of Paphian dames.
Maxime Valois, reaching Suiter's Fort by a launch, falls in with a lank Missouri lad. His sole property in the world is a rifle and his Pike county name of Joe Woods. A late arrival with a party of Mexican war strays, his age and good humor cause the Creole to take him as valuable, simply because one and one make two. He is a good-humored raw lad. Together in the broiling sun, half buried under bank or in the river-beds, they go through the rough evolution of the placer miner's art.
The two thousand scattered foreigners of the State are ten thousand before the year is out. Through the canyons, troops of gold seekers now wander. Sacramento's lovely crystal waters, where the silvery salmon leap, are tinged with typical yellow colors, deepening every month. Tents give way to cabins; pack trains of mules and horses wind slowly over the ridges. Little towns dot the five or six river regions where the miners toil, and only the defeated are idle.
From San Diego to Sonoma the temporary government is paralyzed. It loses all control except the fulmination of useless orders.
Local organization occurs by the pressure of numbers. Quaint names and queer local institutions are born of necessity.
At San Francisco the tower of Babel is duplicated. Polyglot crowds arrive in the craziest craft. Supplies of every character pour in. Shops and smiths, workmen of all trades, appear. Already an old steamboat wheezes on the Sacramento River. Bay Steamers soon vex the untroubled waters of the harbor. They appear as if by magic.
A fever by day, a revel by night, San Francisco is a caravansera of all nations. The Argonauts bring with them their pistols and Bibles, their whiskey and women, their morals and murderers. Crime and intrigues quickly crop out. The ready knife, and the compact code of Colonel Colt in six loaded chapters, are applied to the settlement of all quarrels.
While Valois blisters his hands with the pick and shovel, a matchless strain of good blood is also pouring westward. Young and daring men, even professional scholars, cool merchants, able artisans, and good women hopeful of a golden future, come with men finally able to dragoon these varied masses into order.
Regular communications are established, presses set up, and even churches appear. Post-office, banks, steamer and freight lines spring up within the year of the reign of gold. Disease raises its fevered head, and the physician appears by magic. The human maelstrom settles into an ebb and flood tide to and from the mines.
All over California keen-eyed men from the West and South begin to appropriate land. The Eastern and Middle States pilgrims take up trades and mechanical occupations. All classes contribute recruits to the scattered thousands of miners. Greedy officials and sly schemers begin to prey on the vanishing property rights of the Dons. A strange, unsubstantial social fabric is hastily reared. It clusters around the western peaks by the Golden Gate.
Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana are sending great contingents. Mere nearness, with a taste for personal adventure, causes the southern border element to brave the overland journey. The northwestern overland travellers are more cautious. They have longer roads to drag over. They come prepared for farming or trade, as well as rude mining. As soon as the two lines of Eastern steamers are established, the Eastern and Middle States send heavy reinforcements. They are largely traders or permanent settlers. From the first day, the ambitious, overbearing men of the slave States take the lead in politics. They look to the extension of their gloomy "institution," negro slavery.
Valois keeps much to himself. Resolutely he saves his golden gleanings. He avoids the gambling tables and dance-houses. Joe Woods works like a horse, from mere acquisitiveness. He fondly looks back to a certain farm in Missouri, where he would fain squire it when rich. Public rumor announces the great hegira of gold seekers. The rush begins. Horse stealing, quarrels over claims, personal encounters, rum's lunacy, and warring opinion cause frequent bloody affrays.
Already scattered mounds rudely marked prove the reign of grim King Death. His dark empire stretches even here unstayed, unchallenged. Winter approaches; its floods drive the miners out of the river beds. Joe Woods has aggregated several Pike County souls, whose claims adjoin those of the two young associates. Wishing to open communication with Judge Valois at Belle Etoile, Maxime ceases work. He must recruit for hardships of the next season. He leaves all in the hands of "partner Joe," who prefers to camp with his friends, now the "Missouri Company." Valois is welcome at the Mission Dolores. He can there safely deposit his splendid savings.
Provided with ample funds of gold dust, in heavy buckskin sacks, to send up winter supplies, Valois secures his half of the profits. It is in rudely sealed tin cans of solid gold dust. He is well armed and in good company. He gladly leaves the human bee-hive by the terrific gorges of the American River. He has now learned every trick of the mines. By pack train his treasure moves down to Sacramento. Well mounted, Maxime is the companion of a score of similarly fortunate returning miners. Name, nationality, and previous history of these free lances of fortune have been dropped, like Christian's bundle, on climbing these hills. Every man can choose for himself a new life here, under the spicy breezes of the Sierras. He is a law unto himself.
The young gold hunter sees, amazed, a cantonment of ten thousand people at the bay. He safely conveys his treasure to the priests at the mission. They are shaken from slumber of their religious routine by eager Argonauts. Letters from Padre Francisco at Lagunitas prove the formation of bands of predatory Mexicans. These native Californians and Indian vagabonds are driving away unguarded stock. They mount their fierce banditti on the humbled Don's best horses. Coast and valley are now deserted and ungoverned. The mad rush for gold has led the men northward.
No one dreams as yet of the great Blue Cement lead, which, from Sierra to Mariposa, is to unbosom three hundred millions from the beds of the old, covered geologic rivers. Ten thousand scratch in river bank and bed for surface gold. Priest and layman, would-be scientist and embryo experts, ignore the yellow threaded quartz veins buttressing the great Sierras. He would be a madman now who would think that five hundred millions will be pounded out of the rusty rocks of these California hills in less than a score of years.
The toilers have no curiosity as to the origin or mother veins of the precious metal sought.
Maxime Valois sits under the red-tiled porches of the mission in January, 1849. He has despatched his first safe consignment of letters to Belle Etoile. He little cares for the events which have thrown the exhaustless metal belt of the great West into the reserve assets of the United States. He knows not it is destined within fifty years to be the richest land in the world. The dark schemes of slavery's lord-like statesmen have swept these vast areas into our map. The plotters have ignored the future colossal returns of gold, silver, copper, and lead.
Not an American has yet caught the real value of the world's most extensive forests of pine and redwood. They clothe these western slopes with graceful, unmutilated pageantry of green.
Fisheries and fields which promise great gains are passed unnoticed. It is a mere pushing out of boundary lines, under the political aggression of the South.
Even Benton, cheering the departing thousands Westward, grumbles in the Senate of the United States, on January 26, 1840. As the official news of the gold discoveries is imparted, the wise senators are blind in the sunlight of this prosperity. "I regret that we have these mines in California," Benton says; "but they are there, and I am in favor of getting rid of them as soon as possible." Wise senator!
Neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet is he. He cannot see that these slighted mines in the future will be the means of sustaining our country's credit in a great war. This gold and silver will insure the construction of the overland railroads. The West and Northwest, sealed to the Union by bands of steel, will be the mainstay of the land. They will equalize a broader, grander Union than he ever dreamed of.
Benton little thinks he has found the real solution of the wearying strife of North and South. Turning the surplus population of these bitterly opposed sections to the unpeopled West solves the problem. His son-in-law, Governor Fremont, has been a future peacemaker as well as a bold pathfinder. For it is on the track of Fremont that thousands are now tramping west. Their wheels are bearing the household gods. Civilization to be is on the move. Gold draws these crowds. The gulfs of the Carribean, even the lonely straits of Magellan and the far Pacific, are furrowed now by keels seeking the happy land where plentiful gold awaits every daring adventurer. Martinet military governors cannot control this embryo empire. Already in Congress bills are introduced to admit California into the Union. A rising golden star glitters in the West; it is soon to gild the flag of the Union with a richer radiance.
Great leaders of the sovereign people struggle at Washington in keen debate, inspired by the hostile sections of the Union. They quarrel over the slavery interests in the great West. Keen Tom Corwin, loyal Dix, astute Giddings, Douglass the little giant, and David Wilmot fight freedom's battle with the great apostle of State rights, Calhoun. He is supported by President Polk, the facile Secretary of State Buchanan, and that dark Mississippi man of destiny, Jefferson Davis. The fiery Foote and all the ardent knights of the day champion the sunny South. Godlike Daniel Webster pours forth for freedom some of his greatest utterances. William H. Seward, prophet, seer, statesman, and patriot, with noble inspirations cheers on freedom's army. Who shall own bright California, the bond or the free? While these great knights of our country's round table fight in the tourney of the Senate over this golden prize, Benton sends back the "pathfinder" Fremont. He is now freed from the army by an indignant resignation. He bears a letter to Benton's friends in the West to organize the civil community and prepare a constitution.
While Valois watches for news, the buds and blossoms of early spring call him back to the American River. The bay whitens with the sails of arriving thousands. Political combinations begin everywhere. Two years have made Fremont, Kearney, Colonel Mason, General P. F. Smith, and General Bennett Riley temporary military governors. Maxime leaves with ample stores; he rejoins the "Missouri Company," already reaping the golden harvest of the golden spring.
Sage counsel reaches him from Padre Francisco. He hears with delight of the youth's success in the mines. The French missionary, with a natural love of the soil, advises Valois to buy lands as soon as good titles can be had.
The Mexican War ends in glory to the once despised Gringos. Already the broad grants of the Dons are coveted by the officials of the military regency. Several of the officers have already served themselves better than their country. The entanglements of a new rule amount to practical confiscation of the lands of the old chieftains. What they saved from the conqueror is destined later to fatten greedy lawyers.
The spoliated Church is avenged upon the heirs of those who worked its temporal ruin. For here, while mad thousands delve for the gold of their desire, the tramping feet of uncontrolled hosts are heard at the gates of the Sierras. When the fleets give out their hordes of male and female adventurers, there is no law but that of force or duplicity; no principle but self-interest. Virtue, worth, and desert meekly bow to strength. Wealth in its rudest form of sacks of uncoined gold dust rules the hour.
The spring days lengthen into summer. Maxime Valois recoils from the physical toil of the rocky bars of the American. His nature is aristocratic; his youthful prejudices are averse to hand work. Menial attendance, though only upon himself, is degrading to him. The rough life of the mines becomes unbearable. A Southerner, par excellence, in his hatred of the physical familiarity of others, he avails himself of his good fortune to find a purchaser for his interests. The stream of new arrivals is a river now, for the old emigrant road of Platte and Humboldt is delivering an unending human current. Past the eastern frontier towns of Missouri, the serpentine trains drag steadily west; their camp fires glitter from "St. Joe" to Fort Bridger; they shine on the summit lakes of the Sierras, where Donner's party, beset in deepest snows, died in starvation. They were a type of the human sacrifices of the overland passage. Skeletons dot the plains now.
By flood and desert, under the stroke of disease, by the Indian tomahawk and arrow, with every varied accident and mishap, grim Death has taken his ample toll along three thousand miles. Sioux and Cheyenne, Ute and Blackfoot, wily Mormon, and every lurking foe have preyed as human beasts on the caravans. These human fiends emulate the prairie wolf and the terrific grizzly in thirst for blood.
The gray sands of the burning Colorado desert are whitening with the bones of many who escaped Comanche and Apache scalping knives, only to die of fatigue.
By every avenue the crowd pours in. Valois has extended his acquaintance with the leading miners. He is aware of the political organization about to be effected. He has now about forty thousand dollars as his share of gold dust. An offer of thirty thousand more for his claim decides him to go to San Francisco. He is fairly rich. With that fund he can, as soon as titles settle, buy a broad rancho. His active mind suggests the future values of the building lots in the growing city.
He completes the rude formalities of his sale, which consist of signing a bill of sale of his mining claim, and receiving the price roughly weighed out in gold. He hears that a convention is soon to organize the State. On September 1, 1849, at Monterey, the civil fabric of government will be planned out.
Before he leaves he is made a delegate. Early July, with its tropical heat, is at hand. The camp on the American is agitated by the necessity of some better form of government. Among others, Philip Hardin of Mississippi, a lawyer once, a rich miner now, is named as delegate.
At Sacramento a steamer is loaded to the gunwales with departing voyagers. Maxime meets some of his fellow delegates already named. Among them is Hardin of Mississippi. Philip Hardin is a cool, resolute, hard-faced man of forty. A lawyer of ability, he has forged into prominence by sheer superiority. The young Creole is glad to meet some one who knows his beloved New Orleans. As they glide past the willow-shaded river banks, the two Southerners become confidential over their cigars.
Valois learns, with surprise, that President Polk sent the polished Slidell confidentially to Mexico in 1846, and offered several millions for a cession of California. He also wanted a quit-claim to Texas. This juggling occurred before General Taylor opened the campaign on the Rio Grande. In confidential relations with Sidell, Hardin pushed over to California as soon as the result of the war was evident. Ambitious and far-seeing, Philip Hardin unfolds the cherished plan of extending slavery to the West. It must rule below the line of the thirty-sixth parallel. Hardin is an Aaron Burr in persuasiveness. By the time the new friends reach San Francisco, Maxime has found his political mentor. Ambition spurs him on.
Wonders burst upon their eyes. Streets, business houses and hotels, dwellings and gaudy places of resort, are spread over the rolling slopes. Valois has written his friends at the mission to hold his letters. He hastens away to deposit his treasures and gain news of the old home in the magnolia land.
Hardin has the promise of the young Louisianian to accompany him to Monterey. A preliminary conference of the southern element in the convention is arranged. They must give the embryo State a pro-slavery constitution. He busies himself with gaining a thorough knowledge of the already forming cabals. Power is to be parcelled out, places are to be filled. The haughty Mississippian cares more for this excitement than digging for mere inert treasure. His quick eye catches California's splendid golden star in the national constellation.
Valois finds he must wait the expected letters. He decides to take no steps as to investment until the civil power is stable.
With a good mustang he rides the peninsula thoroughly. He visits the old Presidio on the outskirts of the growing city. He rides far over the pass of Lake Merced, to where the broken gap in the coast hills leaves a natural causeway for the railway of the future.
Philip Hardin, fisher of men, is keeping open house near the plaza. Already his rooms are the headquarters of the fiery chivalry of the South. Day by day Valois admires the self-assertion of the imperious lawyer. The Mississippian has already plotted out the situation. He is concert with leaders like himself, who are looking up and drawing in their forces for the struggle at the convention.
Valois becomes familiar with the heads of the Northern opposition. Able and sturdy chiefs are already marshalling the men who come from the lands of the northern pine to meet in the peaceful political arena the champions of the palmetto land. Maxime's enthusiasm mounts. The young Southerner feels the pride of his race burning in his veins.
In his evening hours, under the oaks of the Mission Dolores, he bears to the calm priests his budget of port and town. He tells of the new marvellous mines, of the influx of gold hunters. He cannot withhold his astonishment that the priesthood should not have discovered the gold deposits. The astute clergy inform him calmly that for years their inner circles have known of considerable gold in the possession of the Indians. It was a hope of the Church that some fortunate turn of Mexican politics might have restored their sway. Alas! It was shattered in 1834 by the relentless Hijar.
"Hijo mio!" says an old padre. "We knew since 1838 that gold was dug at Franscisquita canyon in the south. If we had the old blessed days of Church rule, we could have quietly controlled this great treasure field. But this is now the land of rapine and adventure. First, the old pearl-fishers in the gulf of California; then the pirates lurking along the coast, watching the Philippine galleons. When your Americans overran Texas, and commenced to pour over the plains here, we knew all was lost. Your people have fought a needless war with Mexico; now they are swarming in here—a godless race, followed by outcasts of the whole of Europe. There is no law here but the knife and pistol. Your hordes now arriving have but one god alone—gold."
The saddened old padre sighs as he gathers his breviary and beads, seeking his lonely cloister. He is a spectre of a day that is done.
Bustling crowds confuse Valois when he rides through San Francisco next day. One year's Yankee dominion shows a progress greater than the two hundred and forty-six years of Spanish and Mexican ownership. The period since Viscaino's sails glittered off Point Reyes has been only stagnation.
Seventy-three years' droning along under mission rule has ended in vain repetition of spiritual adjurations to the dullard Indians. To-day hammer and saw, the shouts of command, the din of trade, the ships of all nations, and the whistle, tell of the new era of work. The steam engine is here. The age of faith is past. "Laborare est orare" is the new motto. Adios, siesta! Enter, speculation.
Dreamy-eyed senoritas in amazement watch the growing town. Hundreds are throwing the drifted sand dunes into the shallow bay to create level frontage. Swarthy riders growl a curse as they see the lines of city lot fences stretching toward the Presidio, mission, and potrero.
Inventive Americans live on hulks and flats, anchored over water lots. The tide ebbs and flows, yet deep enough to drown the proprietors on their own tracts, purchased at auction of the alcalde as "water lots."
Water lots, indeed! Twenty years will see these water lots half a mile inland.
Masonry palaces will find foundations far out beyond where the old CYANE now lies. Her grinning ports hold Uncle Sam's hushed thunder-bolts. It is the downfall of the old REGIME.
Shed, tent, house, barrack, hut, dug-out, ship's cabin—everything which will cover a head from the salt night fog is in service. The Mexican adobe house disappears. Pretentious hotels and storehouses are quickly run up in wood. The mails are taking orders to the East for completed houses to come "around the Horn." Sheet-iron buildings are brought from England. A cut stone granite bank arrives in blocks from far-off China.
Vessels with flour from Chile, goods from Australia, and supplies from New York and Boston bring machinery and tools. Flour, saw, and grist mills are provided. Every luxury is already on the way from Liverpool, Bordeaux, Havre, Hamburg, Genoa, and Glasgow. These vessels bring swarms of natives of every clime. They hasten to a land where all are on an equal footing of open adventure, a land where gold is under every foot.
Without class, aristocracy, history, or social past, California's "golden days" are of the future.
Strange that in thirty years' residence of the sly Muscovites at Fort Ross, in the long, idle leisure of the employees of the Hudson Bay station at Yerba Buena Cove from 1836 to 1846, even with the astute Swiss Captain Sutter at New Helvetia, all capacities of the fruitful land have been so strangely ignored.
The slumber of two hundred and fifty years is over. Frenchman, Russian, Englishman, what opiate's drowsy charms dulled your eager eyes so long here? Thousands of miles of virgin lands, countless millions of treasures, royal forests and hills yet to grow under harvest of olive and vine—all this the mole-like eyes of the olden days have never seen.
Even the Mormons acted with the supine ignorance of the foreigners. They scorned to pick this jewel up. Judicious Brigham Young from the Great Salt Lake finally sends emissaries to spy and report. Like the wind his swift messengers go east to divert strong battalions of the Mormon converts from Europe, under trusted leaders, to San Francisco. Can he extend his self-built empire to the Pacific Slope? Brigham may be a new Mahomet, a newer Napoleon, for he has the genius of both.
Alas! when the Mormon bands arrive, Sam Brannard, their leader, abandons the new creed of "Mormon" for the newer creed of "Mammon." He becomes a mercantile giant. The disciples scatter as gold-seekers. California is lost to the Mormons. Even so! Fate, providence, destiny, or some cold evolution of necessary order, draws up the blue curtains of the West. It pins them to our country's flag with a new, glittering star, "California."
With eager interest Valois joins Philip Hardin. There is a social fever in the air. His friends are all statesmen in this chrysalis of territorial development. They are old hands at political intrigue. They would modestly be senators, governors, and rulers. They would cheerfully serve a grateful State.
A band of sturdy cavaliers, they ride out, down the bay shores. They cross the Santa Clara and Salinas valleys toward Monterey.
Valois' easy means enable him to be a leader of the movement. It is to give a constitution and laws to the embryo State.
Hardy men from the West and South are taking up lands. Cool traders are buying great tracts. Temporary officials have eager eyes fixed on the Mexican grants. At all the landings and along the new roads, once trails, little settlements are springing up, for your unlucky argonaut turns to the nearest avocation; inns, stables, lodging-houses and trading-tents are waited on by men of every calling and profession. Each wanderer turns to the easiest way of amassing wealth. The settlers must devise all their own institutions. The Mexicans idly wrap their serapes around them, and they avoid all contact with the hated foreigner. Beyond watching their flocks and herds, they take no part in the energetic development. Cigarito in mouth, card playing or watching the sports of the mounted cavaliers are their occupations. Dismounted in future years, these queer equestrian natures have never learned to fight the battle of life on foot. The law of absorption has taken their sad, swarthy visages out of the social arena.
The cavalcade of Southerners sweeps over the alamedas. They dash across the Salinas and up to wooded Monterey. There the first constitutional convention assembles.
Their delighted eyes have rested on the lovely Santa Cruz mountains, the glorious meadows of Santa Clara, and the great sapphire bay of Monterey. The rich Pajaro and Salinas valleys lie waiting at hand. Thinking also of the wondrous wealth of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, of the tropical glories of Los Angeles, Philip Hardin cries: "Gentlemen, this splendid land is for us! We must rule this new State! We must be true to the South!"
To be in weal and woe "true to the South" is close to the heart of every cavalier in Philip Hardin's train.
The train arrives at Monterey, swelled by others faithful to that Southern Cross yet to glitter on dark fields of future battle.
The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo closed a bloody Conflict on February 2, 1848. It is the preamble to a long struggle. It is destined in the West to be bloodless until the fatal guns trained on Fort Sumter bellow out their challenge to the great Civil War. It is only then the mighty pine will swing with a crash against the palm.
Hardin knows that recruits, true of blood, are hastening to the new land of El Dorado. As he leads his dauntless followers into Monterey his soul is high. He sees the beloved South sweeping in victory westward as proudly as her legions rolled over the fields of Monterey and Buena Vista.
The convention assembles. All classes are represented on September 1, 1849. The first legal civil body is convoked west of the Rockies. Men of thought are here. Men destined to be world-famous in the unknown future. Settlers, hidalgos, traders, argonauts, government officials of army and navy, and transient adventurers of no mean ability. A little press already works with its magical talking types. A navy chaplain is the Franklin of the West. Some order and decorum appear. The calm voice of prayer is heard. The mingled amens of the conquerors thank God for a most unjustifiable acquisition of the lands of others. They are ours only by the right of the strong against the weak—the world's oldest title.
The South leads in representative men. Ready to second the secret desires of Polk, Buchanan, and Calhoun is the astute and courtly Gwin, yet to be senator, duke of Sonora, and Nestor of his clan. Moore of Florida, Jones of Louisiana, Botts, Burnett, and others are in line. On the Northern side are Shannon, an adopted citizen; wise Halleck; polished McDougall; gifted Edward Gilbert, and other distinguished men—men worthy of the day and hour.
As independent members, Sutter, General Vallejo, Thomas O. Larkin, Dr. Semple, Wright, Hastings, Brown, McCarver, Rodman S. Price, Snyder, and others lend their aid. From the first day the advocates of slavery and freedom battle in oratorical storm. The forensic conflict rages for days; first on the matter of freedom, finally on that of boundary.
Freedom's hosts receive a glorious reinforcement in the arrival of John C. Fremont.
After bitter struggles the convention casts the die for freedom. The Constitution of the State is so adopted. While the publicists, led by Fremont and Gwin, seek to raise the fabric of state, the traders and adventurers, the hosts of miners springing to life under the chance touch of James W. Marshall's finger, on January 24, 1848, are delving or trading for gold.
Poor, ill-starred Marshall! He wanders luckless among the golden fields. He gains no wealth. He toils as yet, unthinking of his days of old age and lonely poverty. He does not look forward to being poor at seventy-three years, and dying in 1885 alone. The bronze monument over his later grave attests no fruition of his hopes. It only can show the warm-hearted gratitude of children yet unborn, the Native Sons of the Golden West. Cool old borderers like Peter Lassen, John Bidwell, P. B. Redding, Jacob P. Leese, Wm. B. Ide, Captain Richardson, and others are grasping broad lands as fair as the banks of Yarrow. They permit the ill-assorted delegates to lay down rules for the present and laws for the future. The State can take care of itself. Property-holders appear and aid. Hensley, Henley, Bartlett, and others are cool and able. While the Dons are solemnly complimented in the convention, their rights are gracefully ignored.
The military governor, General Bennett Riley, stands back. He justly does not throw his sword into the scales. Around him are rising men yet to be heroes on a grander field of action than the mud floors of a Monterey adobe. William T. Sherman, the only Northern American strategist, is a lieutenant of artillery. Halleck, destined to be commander-in-chief of a million men, is only a captain of engineers and acting Secretary of State. Graceful, unfortunate, accomplished Charles P. Stone is a staff officer. Ball's Bluff and Fort Lafayette are far in the misty unknown.
The convention adjourns SINE DIE in October 13, 1849. It has settled the great point of freedom on the Pacific Coast. It throws out the granite Sierras as an eternal bulwark against advancing slavery. The black shame is doomed never to cross the Rockies, and yet the great struggle for the born nobility of manhood has been led by Shannon, an alien Irishman. The proudest American blood followed Dr. Gwin's pro-slavery leading. The two senators named are Gwin and the hitherto unrewarded Fremont. Wright and Gilbert are the two congressmen. Honest Peter H. Burnett, on November 13, is elected the first governor of California. He is chosen by the people, and destined to live to see nearly fifty years of peaceful prosperity on the golden coast.
While this struggle is being waged on the Pacific, at Washington the giant statesmen of those famous ante-bellum days close in bitter strife. The political future of the great West, now known to be so rich, is undecided. It is the desperate desire of the South to keep California out of the Union, unless the part falling under the Wilmot proviso act south of 36 deg 30 min is given to slavery.
The national funds to pay for the "Gadsden purchase" will be withheld unless slavery can be extended. The great struggle brings out all the olden heroes of the political arena. Benton, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Davis, King, Sam Houston, Foote, Seward, John Bell, and Douglas, are given a golden prize to tourney for. In that press of good knights, many a hard blow is struck. The victor and vanquished stand to-day, looming gigantic on the dim horizon of the past. It is the dark before the dawn of the War of the Rebellion.
It was before these days of degenerated citizenship, when the rising tide of gold floats the corrupt millionnaire and syndicate's agent into the Senate. The senator's toga then wrapped the shoulders of our greatest men. No bonanza agents—huge moral deformities of heaped-up gold—were made senatorial hunchbacks by their accidental millions.
No vulgar clowns dallied with the country's interests in those old days when Greek met Greek. It was a gigantic duel of six leaders: Webster, Seward, and Clay, pitted against Calhoun, Davis, and Foote. Pausing to refresh their strength for the final struggle, the noise of battle rolled away until the early days of 1850. California was kept out.
The delegates at Monterey hastened home to their exciting callings. Philip Hardin saw the wished-for victory of the South deferred. Gnashing his teeth in rage, he rode out of Monterey. Maxime Valois now is the ardent "Faust" to whom he plays "Mephisto." His following had fallen away. Hardin, cold, profound, and deep, was misunderstood at the Convention. He wished to gain local control. He knew the overmastering power of the pro-slavery administration would handle the main issue later—if not in peace, then in war.
As the red-tiled roofs of Monterey fade behind them, Hardin unbosoms himself to his young comrade. Maxime Valois has been a notable leader in the Convention. He was eager and loyal to the South. He extended many acquaintances with the proud chivalry element of the new State. His short experience of public life feeds his rising ambition. He determines to follow the law; the glorious profession which he laid aside to become a pathfinder; the pathway to every civic honor.
"Valois," says Hardin, "these people are too short-sighted. Our Convention leaders are failures. We should have ignored the slavery fight as yet. Thousands of Southern voters are coming to us within six months from the border States. Our friends from the Gulf are swarming here. The President will fill all the Federal offices with sound Southern Democrats. The army and navy will be in sympathy with us. With a little management we could have got slavery as far as 36 deg 30 sec. We could work it all over the West with the power of our party at the North. We could have controlled the rest of this coast by the Federal patronage, keeping the free part out of the Union as territories. Then our balance of power would be stable. It is not a lost game. Wait! only wait!"
Maxime agrees. Philip Hardin opens the young politician's eyes with a great confidence.
"Maxime, I have learned to like you and depend on you. I will give you a proof of it. We of the old school are determined to rule this country. If Congress admits California as a free State, there will yet be a Lone Star republic covering this whole coast. The South will take it by force when we go out."
The Louisianian exclaims, "Secession!"
"Yes, war even. Rather war than the rule of the Northern mud-sill!" cries Hardin, spurring his horse, instinctively. "Our leading men at home are in thorough concert day by day. If the issue is forced on us the whole South will surely go out. But we are not ready yet. Maxime, we want our share of this great West. We will fill it with at least even numbers of Southern men. In the next few years the West will be entirely neutral in case of war or unless we get a fair division. If we re-elect a Democrat as President we will save the whole West."
"War," muses Valois, as they canter down the rich slopes toward the Salinas River, "a war between the men who have pressed up Cerro Gordo and Chepultepec together! A war between the descendants of the victorious brothers of the Revolution!" It seems cold and brutal to the young and ardent Louisianian. An American civil war! The very idea seems unnatural. "But will the Yankees fight?" queries Valois. Hardin replies grimly: "I did not think we would even be opposed in this Convention. They seemed to fight us pretty well here. They may fight in the field—when it comes."
For Philip Hardin is a wise man. He never under-estimates his untried enemy.
Valois smiles. He cannot control a sneer. The men who are lumber-hewers, dirt-diggers, cod-fishers and factory operatives will never face the Southern chivalry. He despises the sneaking Yankees. Traders in a small way arouse all the arrogance of the planter. He cannot bring any philosophy of the past to tell him that the straining, leaky Mayflower was the pioneer of the stately American fleets now swarming on every sea. The little wandering Boston bark, Otter, in 1796 found her way to California. She was the harbinger of a mighty future marine control. The lumbering old Sachem (of the same Yankee borough) in 1822 founded the Pacific hide and tallow trade as an earnest of the sea control. Where one Yankee shows the way thousands may follow, yet this Valois ignored in his scorn of the man who works.
Maxime could not dream that the day could ever come when thousands of Yankees would swarm over entrenchments, vainly held by the best blood of the sunny South.
As the two gentlemen ride on, Hardin uses the confidential loneliness of the trip to prove to the Creole that war and separation must finally come.
"We want this rich land for ourselves and the South." The young man's blood was up.
"I know the very place I want!" cries Valois.
He tells Hardin of Lagunitas, of its fertile lands sweeping to the San Joaquin. He speaks of its grassy, rolling hills and virgin woods.
Philip Hardin learns of the dashing waters of the Merced and Mariposa on either side. He hears of the glittering gem-like Lagunitas sparkling in the bosom of the foot-hills. Valois recounts the wild legends, caught up from priest and Indian, of that great, terrific gorge, the Yosemite. Hardin allows much for the young man's wild fancy. The gigantic groves of the big trees are only vaguely described. Yet he is thrilled.
He has already seen an emigrant who wandered past Mono Lake over the great Mono notch in the Sierras. There it rises eleven thousand feet above the blue Pacific—with Castle Dome and Cathedral Peak, grim sentinels towering to the zenith.
"It must really be a paradise," muses Hardin.
"It is," cries the Creole; "I intend to watch that region. If money can make it mine, I will toil to get it."
Philip Hardin, looking through half-closed eyes at Valois, decides to follow closely this dashing adventurer. He will go far.
"Valois," he slowly says, "you have seen these native land-barons at the Convention. A few came in to join us. The rest are hostile and bitter. They can never stand before us. The whole truth is, the Mexican must go! We stopped the war a little too soon here. They are now protected by the treaty, but we will litigate them out of all their grants. Keep your eye on Lagunitas. It may come into the market. Gold will be the fool's beacon here for some time. These great valleys will yet be the real wealth of the new State. Land is the rock of the wealth to come. Get land, my boy!" he cries, with the lordly planter's instinct.
Valois admires the cold self-confidence of the sardonic Hardin. He opens his heart. He leans upon the resolute Mississippian.
It takes little to make Maxime joyfully accept Philip Hardin's invitation to share his office. They will follow the fortunes of the city by the Golden Gates.
On riding down the Visitacion valley their eyes are greeted with the sight of the first ocean steamers. A thousand new-comers throng the streets.
Maxime finds a home in the abode of Hardin. His cottage stands on a commanding lot, bought some time before.
Letters from "Belle Etoile" delight the wanderer. He learns of the well-being of his friends. Judge Valois' advice to Maxime decides him to cast his lot in with the new State. It is soon to be called California by legal admission.
Philip Hardin is a leader of the embryo bar of the city. Courts, books, two newspapers and the elements of a mercantile community are the newest signs of a rapid crystallization toward order. With magic strides the boundaries of San Francisco enlarge. Every day sees white-winged sails fluttering. Higher rises the human tumult. From the interior mines, excited reports carry away half the arrivals. They are eager to scoop up the nuggets, to gather the golden dust. New signs attract the eye: "Bank," "Hotel," "Merchandise," "Real Estate." Every craft and trade is represented. It is the vision of a night.
Already a leader, Hardin daily extends his influence as man, politician, and counsellor.
The great game is being played at the nation's capital for the last sanction to the baptism of the new star in the flag.
California stands knocking at the gates of the Union, with treasure-laden hands. In Congress the final struggle on admission drags wearily on. Victorious Sam Houston of Texas, seconded by Jefferson Davis, fresh laurelled from Buena Vista, urges the claims of slavery. Foote "modestly" demands half of California, with a new slave State cut out from the heart of blood-bought Texas. But the silver voice of Henry Clay peals out against any extension of slave territory. Proud King of Alabama appeals in vain to his brethren of the Senate to discipline the two ambitious freemen of the West, by keeping them out of the Union.
Great men rally to the bugle notes of their mighty leaders.
The gallant son of the South, General Taylor, finds presidential honors following his victories. In formal message he announces on February 13, 1850, to Congress that the new State waits, with every detail of first organization, for admission.
Stern Calhoun, chief of the aspiring Southerners, proudly claims a readjustment of the sectional equality thus menaced. Who shall dare to lift the gauntlet thrown down by South Carolina's mighty chieftain?
In the hush of a listening Senate, Daniel Webster, the lion of the North, sounds a noble defiance. "Slavery is excluded from California by the law of nature itself," is his warning admonition.
With solemn brow, and deep-set eyes, flashing with the light of genius, he appeals to the noblest impulses of the human heart. Breathless senators thrill with his inspired words. "We would not take pains to reaffirm an ordinance of nature," he cries, and, as his grave argument touches the listeners, he reverently adds, "nor to re-enact the will of God."
Mighty Seward rises also to throw great New York's gauntlet in the teeth of slavery.
Taunted with its legal constitutional sanction, he exclaims grandly, "There is a higher law than the Constitution."
Long years have passed since both the colossus of the North and the great Governor entered into the unbroken silence of the grave. Their immortal words ring still down the columned years of our country's history. They appeal to noble sons to emulate the heroes of this great conflict. Shall the slave's chains clank westward? No! Above the din of commoner men, the logic of John Bell, calm and patriotic, brings conviction. The soaring eloquence of Stephen A. Douglas claims the Western shores for freedom.
Haughty Foote and steadfast Benton break lances in the arena.
Kentucky's greatest chieftain, whose gallant son's life-blood reddened Buena Vista's field, marshals the immortal defenders of human liberty. Henry Clay's paternal hand is stretched forth in blessing over the young Pacific commonwealth. All vainly do the knights of the Southern Cross rally around mighty Calhoun, as he sits high on slavery's awful throne.
Cold Davis, fiery Foote, ingenious Slidell, polished and versatile Soule, ardent King, fail to withstand that mighty trio, "Webster, Seward, and Clay," the immortal three. The death of the soldier-President Taylor calms the clamor for a time. The struggle shifts to the House. Patriotic Vinton, of Ohio, locks the door on slavery. On the 9th day of September, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signs the bill which limits the negro hunter to his cotton fields and cane brakes at home. The representatives of the new State are admitted. A new golden star shines unpolluted in the national constellation.
Westward the good news flies by steamer. All the shadows on California's future are lifted.
While wearied statesmen rest from the bitter warfare of two long years, from North and South thousands eagerly rush to the golden land.
The Southern and Border States send hosts of their restless youths.
From the Northwest sturdy freemen, farmers with families, toil toward new homes under freedom's newest star. The East and Middle States are represented by all their useful classes.
The news of California's admission finds Hardin and Valois already men of mark in the Occidental city.
Disappointed at the issue, Hardin presses on to personal eminence; he turns his energies to seeking honors in the legal forum.
Maxime Valois, quietly resuming his studies for the bar, guards his funds, awaiting opportunity for investment. He burns the midnight oil in deep studies. The two men wander over the growing avenues of the Babel of the West. Every allurement of luxury, every scheme of vice, all the arts of painted siren, glib knave, and lurking sharper are here; where the game is, there the hunter follows. Rapidly arriving steamers pour in hundreds. The camp followers of the Mexican war have streamed over to San Francisco. The notable arrival of the steamer California brings crowds of men, heirs to future fame, and good women, the moral salt of the new city. It also has its New York "Bowery Boys," Philadelphia "Plug Uglies," Baltimore "Roughs," and Albany "Strikers."
By day, new occupations, strange callings, and the labor of organizing a business community, engage all men. The ebb and flow of going and returning miners excite the daylight hours. From long wharves, river steamers, laden to the gunwales, steam past the city shores to Sacramento. At night, deprived of regular homes, the whole city wanders in the streets, or crowds flashy places of amusement. Cramped on the hilly peninsula, there are no social lines drawn between good and bad. Each human being is at sea in a maelstrom of wild license.
The delegated representatives of the Federal Government soon arrive. Power is given largely to the Southern element. While many of the national officials are distinguished and able, they soon feel the inspiring madness of unrebuked personal enjoyment.
Money in rough-made octagonal fifty-dollar slugs flows freely. Every counter has its gold-dust scales. Dust is current by the ounce, half ounce, and quarter ounce. The varied coins of the whole world pass here freely. The months roll away to see, at the end of 1850, a wider activity; there is even a greater excitement, a more pronounced madness of dissipation. Speculation, enterprise, and abandonment of old creeds, scruples, and codes, mark the hour.
The flying year has brought the ablest and most daring moral refugees of the world to these shores, as well as steady reinforcements of worthy settlers. Pouring over the Sierras, and dragging across the deserts, the home builders are spreading in the interior. The now regulated business circles, extending with wonderful elasticity, attract home and foreign pilgrims of character. Though the Aspasias of Paris, New Orleans, and Australia throng in; though New York sends its worthless womanhood in floods, there are even now worthy home circles by the Golden Gate. Church, school, and family begin to build upon solid foundations. All the government bureaus are in working order. The Custom House is already known as the "Virginia Poor House." The Post-Office and all Federal places teem with the ardent, haughty, and able ultra Democrats of the sunny South. The victory of the Convention bids fair to be effaced in the high-handed control of the State by Southern men. As the rain falleth on the just and unjust, so does the tide of prosperity enrich both good and bad. Vice, quickly nourished, flaunts its early flowers. The slower growth of virtue is yet to give golden harvest of gathered sheaves in thousands of homes yet to be in the Golden State. Long after the maddened wantons and noisy adventurers have gone the way of all "light flesh and corrupt blood," the homes will stand. Sailing vessels stream in from the ports of the world. On the narrow water-front, Greek and Lascar, Chinaman and Maltese, Italian and Swede, Russian and Spaniard, Chileno and Portuguese jostle the men of the East, South, and the old country. Fiery French, steady German, and hot-headed Irish are all here, members of the new empire by the golden baptism of the time.
Knife and revolver, billy and slung-shot, dirk and poniard, decide the ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.
In the enjoyment of fraternal relations with the leaders of the dominant party East, Philip Hardin becomes a trusted counsellor of the leading officials. He sees the forum of justice opened in the name of Union and State. He ministers at the altars of the Law. He gains, daily, renown and riches in his able conduct of affairs.
Hardin's revenue rises. He despises one of the State judgeships easily at his hand. As his star mounts, his young neophyte, Maxime Valois, shares his toils and enjoys his training. Under his guidance he launches out on the sea of that professional legal activity, which is one continued storm of contention.
Valois has trusted none of the mushroom banks. He keeps his gold with the Padres. He makes a number of judicious purchases of blocks and lots in the city, now growing into stable brick, stone, and even iron.